YOU think, no doubt, he sits and
muses
On future broken bones and bruises,
If he should chance to fall.
No; not a single thought like that
Employs his philosophic pate,
Or troubles it at all.
He sees that this great roundabout,*
The world, with all its motley rout,
Church, army, physic,* law,
Its customs and its businesses,
Is no concern at all of his,
And says - what says he? - Caw.*
Thrice happy bird! I too have seen
Much of the vanities of men;
And, sick of having seen ’em,
Would cheerfully these limbs resign
For such a pair of wings as thine
And such a head between ’em.
Not the road junction, but a merry-go-round, an item of playground furniture in the form of a large circular plate for children to stand on, which can be made to spin like a carousel.
Medical science.
It is tempting to think Cowper intended a wordplay on the exclamation ‘cor!’, but that dates back no further than the twentieth century.